In*her"it*ance (?), n.
[Cf. OF. enheritance.]
1. The act or state
of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an estate;
the inheritance of mental or
physical qualities.
2. That which is or may be inherited; that which is
derived by an heir from an
ancestor or other person; a heritage; a
possession which passes
by descent.
When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter.
Shak. 3. A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction.
To an inheritance incorruptible, and
undefiled, and that fadeth not away.
1 Pet. i. 4.
4. Possession; ownership; acquisition. "The
inheritance of their loves." Shak.
To you th' inheritance belongs by right
Of brother's praise; to you eke 'longs his love.
Spenser. 5. (Biol.) Transmission and reception by animal or plant generation.
6. (Law) A perpetual or continuing right which a man and his heirs have to an estate; an estate which a man has by descent as
heir to another, or which he may
transmit to another as his heir; an estate derived from an ancestor to an heir in course of
law. Blackstone.
&fist; The word inheritance
(used simply) is mostly confined to the title to
land and tenements by a descent.
Mozley & W.
Men are not
proprietors of what they have, merely for themselves; their children have a title to part of it which comes to be wholly
theirs when death has put an end to their
parents' use of it; and this we call inheritance.
Locke.
Hear it pronounced